KOCHI: It’s Christmas season and with it comes brightness and hope. A couple of sellers in the city are trying out new designs. The latest variety is the Christmas star.
Macrame stars
Knotty Designs from Thrissur has introduced macrame stars which uses the traditional art of forming intricate braids. History has it that the art of macrame was long crafted by sailors, especially in elaborate or ornamental knotting forms, to decorate anything from knife handles to bottles to parts of ships.
Knotty Desings has made use of this style to create wreaths and stars during this Christmas.
Creative head of Knotty Designs, Joseph M Alapatt said, “We use knots to produce decorations. It is completely handmade. It takes at least a minimum of twelve hours to create a knotted star.” This explains the rate- Rs 1,500-2,700 rupees.
The wreath costs around Rs 400.Materials used in macrame include cords made of cotton twine, linen, acrylic, hemp, jute, leather which are available online as well as in local markets.Each piece of yarn in the stars are individually cut, mounted and knotted onto a cane frame with fringes at the end, making it a suitable Christmas decor. These stars are illuminated using LEDs as per personal interest.
ARAI GODAI KONCEPTS
In Thai, ‘Arai Godai’ means ‘anything’ which can be a painting, artwork, glass painting, clay modelling, crafts, or any similar work. ‘Arai Godai Koncepts’, a small enterprise which showcases decors. “It’s an open venture welcoming creative minds, who are not professionals. We aim to provide a good platform in order to develop their hobby ideas and skills,” said Mani George, creative head of ‘Arai Godai Koncepts’.
This season, they have mainly concentrated on lighting. The ensemble of ‘Ball Lights’ with closely knitted baby pink cotton threads is ethereal. Even the colourful aberrant embellishments of threads bestow uniqueness to their work. The illuminated metal decors contoured into stars and crescent moon, framing quasi-galaxy are noteworthy with its white threads.
“ Each work has a unique soul. There is a creative mind which has worked behind it. The raw materials are handpicked and imported from Indonesia and Thailand. They are not easily available in the market and hence they cost between Rs 750 to Rs 1800,” said Mani GeorgeThe Joann’s Homestyle at Panampilly Nagar, has brought in a variety of decorations this year.
The shop is currently holding the Christmas sale for the year. Most of the decorations are imported and includes ceramics and porcelain from China.“It is a very tiring process,” Jasmine Mathew said. The rest of the items such as wreaths and paintings are made by ladies nearby, some in their seventies.
“For them,the sale is a platform to showcase their products.They are extremely elated when customers buy their products,” Jasmine said.
The sale features a large variety of products such as snowflakes, poinsettias treeskirts and many more.All the products featured are eco-friendly.Jasmine starts her preaprations for the sale from the months of February every year. (with inputs from Edwin Stanley)